


all the daughters of my father’s house

by lily_winterwood



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/F, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Pining, Rule 63, Twelfth Night - Freeform, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Useless Lesbians, Women's College
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki had always known the universe to be cruel, but she had also thought that it would spare her the indignity of a crash course in method acting.“Congrats,” Phichit tells her, their eyes twinkling over the bowl of cereal as the two of them pore over the Lidwina College Shakespeare Society’s cast list for their spring production ofTwelfth Night. “You’ll be a fantastic Viola.”Yuuri’s too busy panicking at the name next to Duke Orsino to respond. Of course it’s Viktoria Nikiforova.(In which Shakespeare is a metaphor for useless lesbian pining in a women's college production ofTwelfth Night.)





	all the daughters of my father’s house

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendy_bird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendy_bird/gifts).



Yuuri Katsuki had always known the universe to be cruel, but she had also thought that it would spare her the indignity of a crash course in method acting.

“Congrats,” Phichit tells her, their eyes twinkling over the bowl of cereal as the two of them pore over the Lidwina College Shakespeare Society’s cast list for their spring production of _Twelfth Night_. “You’ll be a fantastic Viola.”

Yuuri’s too busy panicking at the name next to Duke Orsino to respond.

Of course Viktoria Nikiforova is playing Duke Orsino. Ever since Yuuri had first saw her as Puck in the Society’s production of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ her first semester, she had dreamt of those eyes, that long silver hair. Viktoria had cut her hair over the summer, and half of the school was in mourning. The rest had added that to their Irrefutable Proof that Viktoria Nikiforova Likes Girls conspiracy boards.

Yuuri’s pretty sure she’s stuck somewhere in between.

* * *

The first conversation between them had gone like this:

Yuuri had been soaked wet from being recently inducted into the Society via Lake Schiedam, and was not in the mood for anything besides a nice scalding shower and her soft warm bed. Viktoria, being President of the Society, had watched from an amused distance, and shaken Yuuri’s hand when she crawled back up the banks like a drowned rat.

“Welcome to the Society,” she’d said. Yuuri had said nothing. It’s barely a conversation, but it’s better than just watching on from afar like she had during the performances last year.

Viola must have felt like this, Yuuri thinks now, as Viktoria sprawls out in her regal throne and flips through the book, reading her lines in the snottiest British accent imaginable to draw giggles from the other cast members. Cold and wet from the Illyrian sea, forced to pretend to be someone she’s not in order to survive. Yuuri’s always waiting for the other shoe to fall — someday, someone will realise she’s not nearly talented enough to be in the Society, or pretty enough to be accorded half of the notoriety Phichit claims she has, or smart enough to be at this prestigious women’s college. Someday, they’ll look at her with the wool pulled from their eyes, and realise the extent of her deception.

“ _If ever thou shalt love, in the sweet pangs of it remember me_ ,” declares Viktoria, her eyes bright as they lock onto Yuuri’s, and Yuuri’s traitorous breath flees her all the same.

* * *

The thing is, Viola died in a tempest off the coast of Illyria. Cesario was reborn from her waterlogged bones, cut from her seaweed-tangled hair. Like a mermaid with knives on new-wrought feet, Cesario stepped into his place at Orsino’s side, nursing a fire in his heart that could never be shown.

 _Viktoria likes someone_ , the campus whispers. _She’s been taken since last December_. They mourn it as dearly as they mourn her hair, and the conspiracies turn towards who could have possibly spirited away the heart of the most eligible bachelorette on campus.

It must have been during the Society Winter Mixer. Yuuri had been there as Phichit’s plus-one, but she had stuck to her side of the room the entire night, too intimidated to even talk to Viktoria. The pressures of her sophomore fall had been overwhelming at the time, and it’s a miracle she pulled through at all.

In any case, Yuuri knows she shouldn’t blame herself for not paying attention to someone else coming in and stealing Viktoria’s heart. It was never hers to take in the first place.

“For someone who claims to love better and more passionately than anyone else in this world, Orsino can’t see lovesickness even when it’s staring him in the face,” Viktoria remarks, during a late-night read-through in the Society Haus’s kitchen. Yuuri has her book propped open on a stand as she fries her pork katsu, the rice cooker she’d dredged from the depths of hers and Phichit’s closet humming merrily in the corner. Viktoria is sitting on the table, high heeled boots hooked on the rungs of her chair. “He claims he loves more deeply than women, but he’s measuring that based entirely on expression, not experience.”

“You think you could do a better job of it?” Yuuri wonders. Viktoria makes a questioning hum. “Of recognising lovesickness?”

“I _am_ in love, so I think I know what it’s like quite well,” replies Viktoria.

“You are,” agrees Yuuri. There’s a picture of the Society members at the latest Winter Mixer on the fridge. Viktoria is resplendent in sparkling black, and Yuuri’s heart beats so loud she wonders if it will fly out of her chest.

“I don’t know if she loves me, though,” Viktoria continues, winding her silver hair around her fingers in the reflection of the kitchen tiles. “And I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

“ _She never told her love_ ,” Yuuri quotes, as she lays out the cutlets and onions and peas in small bowls of rice, “ _but let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, feed on her damask cheek_.”

“You’re already off-book?” asks Viktoria.

 _It’s easy to be off-book when you’re living it_ , Yuuri doesn’t say. Instead, she asks, “Is she in the Society?”

“Yes,” says Viktoria, looking up at her with a smile as Yuuri sets the bowl down in front of her. “This looks amazing, by the way.”

“What year is she in?” asks Yuuri.

“Your year, I think,” replies Viktoria.

Yuuri considers it. There are quite a few sophomores in the Society. “Do I know her?”

“Quite well, I hope,” says Viktoria.

Yuuri can’t think of anyone she knows quite so well as Phichit, but Phichit uses different pronouns. “Is she cute?” she asks after a moment.

Viktoria moans a little at the taste of the cutlet. “Very,” she says. “This _tastes_ amazing.”

Yuuri smiles, but she doesn’t feel it, not when she’s overwhelmed by Viktoria’s perfume, by the warmth of her hand across the table. Whoever this other girl is, she’ll never know how jealous Yuuri is of her.

And Viktoria will never know the extent of her love.

* * *

When they move into blocking, things get so much worse.

“From the song, Feste,” says their director, Christine Giacometti, and Phichit strums a chord on the guitar. The songs for this production had been composed by Leona de la Iglesia, who is playing Sir Toby Belch, and it had taken several rehearsals for Phichit to get the hang of the chords.

“ _I am slain by a fair cruel maid_ ,” they sing now, their sweet tenor melody filling the space of the upstairs theatre in the Haus. Yuuri steps forward, letting Viktoria take her by the waist, and begins to follow her steps.

From the first movement they take together, Yuuri realises she’s in trouble. Viktoria anticipates her perfectly, guides her without any prompting. It’s like their bodies speak the same language — like this is a familiar conversation. Viktoria’s eyes are dark even on this brightly-lit stage, and Yuuri’s breath hitches just looking up at her.

Ever since she first saw Viktoria, she’s never been able to look away. But now everything is _worse_. Now, Yuuri is perfectly attuned to the rhythm of Viktoria’s breaths, the warmth of her fingers, the smell of her perfume. Now, instead of simply staring at the forbidden fruit, she is holding it in her hands, poised to take a bite.

But she can’t.

The song ends with Viktoria dipping her, her lips inches from Yuuri’s own. At this angle, her lips shine cherry-red, forbidden. Would they taste as sweet as Yuuri imagines?

She pulls back. The spell breaks. Phichit smirks openly at them from their perch, and Christine is hiding her own grin behind her book. Viktoria’s cheeks are flushed, too; her breathing is ragged. Her fingertips are still imprinted across Yuuri’s skin.

The scene carries on. Orsino entreats Viola to continue courting Olivia, and Yuuri says Viola’s responses while wishing she didn’t _feel_ them so badly.

* * *

“ _But this your minion —  whom I know you love, and whom by heaven I swear I tender dearly — him will I tear out of that cruel eye_.”

Viktoria leans over Yuuri’s shoulders, her arms wrapped firmly around Yuuri’s waist. The fire in Yuuri’s own heart burns for her, a hopeful candle to Viktoria’s wayward moth. The other people attending the read-through hide knowing glances behind their books and phones.

It’s nearing noon the next morning, after an entire twenty-four hours of reading through all of Shakespeare’s plays. The last play is _Twelfth Night_ , and the cast is assembled in soft nests of pillows and blankets. Yuuri is drowsy yet drowning, so attuned to Viktoria’s warmth that any movement away from her makes her spine run cold.

“ _I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, to spite a raven’s heart within a dove_.” Viktoria’s nose presses against the shell of her ear; Yuuri nearly giggles from the tickling sensation.

“ _And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die_ ,” she says, turning to Viktoria, who coos delightedly as the light hits her sea-glass eyes. Yuuri’s heart hammers in her ribcage again as she feels Viktoria’s breath against her cheek, against her lips. The other woman’s top is half-unbuttoned; at this distance, Yuuri can’t help but note the absence of a bra.

“ _Where goes Cesario_?” Yulia Plisetskaya cuts in, her voice dripping with exasperation. Flushing, Yuuri tears her gaze away from Viktoria’s, fumbling for her book.

“After her I love,” she says. The room murmurs. “Him. _After_ him _I love, more than I love these eyes_.”

Viktoria’s eyes are wide, her pupils dilated. Yuuri wonders, again, if her lips will taste like cherries if she kisses them.

“ _More, by all mores, than e’er I shall love wife_.”

She wonders what could have gone through Viola’s mind the moment it all comes crashing down, the moment she is forced to choose between her lord and Olivia, the sun and the moon, the ocean and the land. She wonders if Orsino had ever come to terms with his feelings for Cesario, or if he had immediately fled to the embrace of familiarity and forgotten the dual nature of his once-drowned wife.

They don’t kiss when the play ends. They haven’t been able to, despite Christine’s insistence that they try to do so after the reveal. Yuuri is almost grateful that they haven’t — Viktoria loves some other lucky girl in this Society, and the knowledge of her lips without the assurance that they could be Yuuri’s alone makes her heart want to break.

It’s not fair, how easily Viktoria can torture her without knowing it. But Yuuri should have known better than to set her sights so loftily.

* * *

Finally, they approach opening week.

Yulia approaches her after the dress rehearsal with a grimace so sour it could curdle milk. Yuuri doesn’t shy away, looking down at the first-year with what she hopes is calm.

“You two need to get over yourselves,” Yulia snaps. “It’s going to drag down the play.”

“Us two?” echoes Yuuri.

Yulia rolls her eyes. “You and that hag Nikiforova,” she grumbles. “You two keep dancing around each other like you’re _actually_ in the goddamn play. Just make out and get it out of your systems already, okay?”

“Viktoria isn’t —” Yuuri begins, but Yulia shakes her head, fumbling for her phone.

“I knew these would come in handy,” she grumbles. “Phichit and Chris said to delete them, but I knew one of you guys would need the reminder someday. Here —” and she shoves the screen at Yuuri, who takes in the image of herself wrapped around a pole in a seafoam-green dress with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“When was this —?” she asks, but the answer is already obvious based on the background. It’s from last December. The Winter Mixer. And Viktoria Nikiforova is smiling so widely in her arms that Yuuri’s heart feels like it’s going to burst.

Yulia crosses her arms. “Yeah. Do something about this, okay? She’s been writing _sonnets_.”

Outside, Lidwina College is brimming with blossoms, wintry lawns already bursting into green. With each successive picture of her and Viktoria dancing, Yuuri feels the tendrils of spring sprouting inside her, too.

“I’m the one,” she breathes, looking up from the phone. Yulia rolls her eyes.

“Put an end to this,” she pleads. “For all of us.”

* * *

She finds Viktoria on the roof of the Haus, looking out at the lake. It glitters, jewel-blue, in the afternoon sun; the warmth of springtime tickles at Yuuri’s hair as she sits down next to her.

“Ready for the show tomorrow?” Viktoria asks, not even turning to look at her. The butt of a cigarette rolls down the roof tiles to the gutter, where a dozen others are.

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. Viktoria exhales, and the faint scent of smoke accompanies her perfume.

“It’s just before opening nights,” she says.

“It’s bad for you,” Yuuri counters.

“I know that.” Viktoria drums her nails against the tile. Yuuri looks back at the other pretty little Society houses on this quiet shaded lane, and wonders if any of them have a story as sordid as theirs. “I’ve just been… god, it’s so — I’m sorry. I’ve been such a dick.”

Yuuri draws her knees up to her chin. “Yulia showed me the photos,” she says after a moment. “Of the Winter Mixer.”

Viktoria’s fingers stop. Her breath hitches. Yuuri suddenly finds it hard to swallow down the lump building in her throat.

“I — I should have said something,” she says, quietly. “Instead of just… Yulia said you didn’t remember. I should’ve known.”

“So it was me.” Yuuri’s shoulders sag, but her heart is light. “All this time, you were talking about me.”

“ _I shall have share in this most happy wreck_ ,” quips Viktoria, breathless. “Though… I think I was Viola in this situation.”

“But so was I,” Yuuri blurts, scrunching herself up tighter. At its current slant, the roof is a bit precarious, but she doesn’t care. “I’ve loved you since my first semester.”

Viktoria gapes at her. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I wasn’t in the Society. I tried, but I didn’t get in. I didn’t even want to try this time around, but Phichit insisted, and —”

She’s cut off by Viktoria’s hand upon hers, Viktoria’s breath on her cheek. She can see the gloss on her lips, feel the curve of her breasts.

“Yuuri Katsuki,” breathes Viktoria, her hair mingling with Yuuri’s in the warm spring morning. “Can I kiss you?”

Yuuri can only nod in reply.

* * *

“ _Your master quits you_ ,” Viktoria tells her on the stage the next night, resplendent in her magenta uniform as Duke Orsino. With her heart unburdened by the pain of the past semester, Yuuri smiles back, stepping closer to her.

“ _And since you call’d me master for so long: here is my hand_.”

The room is breathless with wonder as Yuuri complies, and Viktoria pulls her close.

“ _You shall from this time be your master’s mistress_ ,” declares Viktoria, her gaze fixed firmly on Yuuri’s lips. This time, there is no hesitation.

Yuuri claims her, hard but sweet, and it is everything she had ever dreamed of.

**Author's Note:**

> This was commissioned by the amazing [n-x-northwest](https://n-x-northwest.tumblr.com/), who wanted fem!Viktuuri and oodles of pining, originally in a Ballet AU. I just shifted it two steps to the left and made it a theatre thing instead because I'm an absolute slut for Shakespeare.
> 
> This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real-life women's college Shakespeare Societies and/or their members is purely coincidental.
> 
> Scream about Viktuuri with me on [Tumblr](http://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
